


I Can't Sleep When You Smile At Me

by MistyMoon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/M, Mentioned Character Death, ct tucker and the director (also a lil bit of allison) are only mentioned sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 18:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2280951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyMoon/pseuds/MistyMoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carolina has a nightmare and sleeps in Washington's bed. He ends having a lot of thoughts about her and someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't Sleep When You Smile At Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [euriele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/euriele/gifts).



The first night she comes in your room, she’s with her white blanket around her, and you see that  her hands are shaking. She isn’t crying though, which is good. Her eyes aren’t red either. You see she’s nervous and you smile at her. You know that Carolina hates waking people up. Specially if she thinks the reason why she is waking them up is not important. So, you know she’s not going to say what she wants right away. You wait a bit more.

She looks at you and asks if she can sleep with you. Her breathing is slow and heavy. You take a guess of why she’s asking that.

"Nightmare?" You ask silently.

She just nods.

You take a deep breath and move a little to the right, making space for her. She starts walking towards your bed, clutching the blanket tight. Her fingers are squeezing the soft material, and you see something red coming from some of her fingers. Maybe she started biting her nails again. She used to do that mostly when she got scared. But back there, in the Project, you thought it was just something she got used to do, since she did it so often. Before almost every mission, you sometimes caught her biting them. Most of the time she bit them so hard, most of her fingers were bloody. You could never imagine it was because she was scared. Everyone thought she was brave enough to take care of herself, that she didn’t get scared often. She was always scared, she just hid it well enough for people not to notice.

You never thought of bringing that up. Maybe it was a personal reason, and you didn’t want to confront her about something like that. You didn’t want to upset her.

Then one day you start talking. Nothing specific, she just started talking about the sky and the clouds and the sun, and then you both just started talking about the sky, then the sun, the moon, the stars, and basically space.

It was a peaceful conversation, until she mentioned her father.

"When I was little, like very little, my father used to carry me outside and show me the stars. There used to be so many of them, it was beautiful. I miss seeing the stars." She sighed "I guess we just don’t have time anymore."

She told you about her father a while ago, when you both had agreed to stop keeping secrets from each other. She didn’t tell you everything, you assume, but she told you about how he refused to talk to her or even look at her, and she had to take care of herself after her mother died. How, when she was around twelve, she dyed her hair red and when she came back home, her father asked how was her day. How she decided that if she looked like she wasn’t his daughter, he would start talking to her more often and stop ignoring her completely. You thought it was a horrible thing, having to change yourself so your father can talk to you, but she told you it worked. He never referred to her as his daughter, but at least they interacted with each other, and that’s enough.

She started biting her nails in a slow, discreet way. You looked at her, watching her bite each one of her nails. She didn’t notice you were looking until you asked her why did she them so much.

"I usually do that when I’m scared. But right now, I just need something to distract myself. I know I was the one who brought him up, but I regret it." She looked at her fingers. The top of most of them was covered in blood. You asked if that didn’t hurt.

"It does. But sometimes, I prefer feeling this kind of pain. Hurts less."

You never mentioned that again. You promised yourself you wouldn’t.

When you realize that your thoughts wandered off again, Carolina is lying right next to you, and she’s still holding tightly to her blanket. Her face is turned to you, and you can see that her face is peaceful; she always looks peaceful when she’s sleeping, that is, when she isn’t having a nightmare. During the day, she always looks stressed and angry. She has her reasons, you think. You know some of those reasons, even though you wished you didn’t. You don’t like knowing that your best friend is suffering but she has to put up with everyone’s shit and be strong because no one else will.

You look at her, and you see her smiling again for the first time in years. It’s a small smile, but it still counts. The last time you saw her smile, was probably back in the Project. She was happier back then, mostly because she didn’t have to deal with grieving and losing people wasn’t a big deal, and she had York, who always tried to make her smile no matter what. She loved him. You wonder if she still does. She probably doesn’t think of him anymore. Maybe she’s trying to forget, trying to let go. Or maybe it just hurts to remember a person that you loved but lost the chance to tell them that.

Then, that thought reminds you of something else; someone else. You push it aside. You don’t need to remember her, at least not now. She was one of your friends, and you loved her. You trusted her. And then she betrayed all of you. She was trying to do the right thing, but she ended up getting killed anyway. You never told her how you felt. You regret that. And you wish you could forget her, forget everything about her. But still, you wish she could have been saved. You wish you hadn’t felt the emptiness in your heart when she left. You wish that she wasn’t hard to forget. You wish that she wasn’t as good of a memory as she is. You wish that a lot of things weren’t true, but they are and you can’t help it.

It’s 3:12AM and you can hardly keep your eyes open. They ache, but you can’t sleep. You have them closed, and you’re lying on your bed, head on the pillow, but you just can’t stop thinking and go to sleep. It’s unbelievable that only one person can make you lose your sleep so quickly. You laugh. Of course she made you lose your sleep. When you saw her smiling, your thoughts instantly went insane. God dammit, you love that smile. The way she smiles, and the way her beautiful green eyes shine when she does.

You stop. You need to sleep, fucking hell. That’s what you were trying to do a while ago, and you need to focus. You take a deep breath and try to think about anything except your friends, and specially not about Carolina. You rub your eyes and go back to trying to sleep. You think of that one time where you overslept and Tucker had to wake you up. The guy was naked, and you threw a pillow at him. Then, he complained that, while he had to wake up early, you could sleep all you wanted. You laughed. Those were good times, where Tucker complained so much it made you laugh. He’s more serious now, but he’s still Tucker. He’s still the same Tucker that refused to run drills because it was Sunday. Still the same Tucker that, after two long weeks of denying, admitted that you were his friend. He can be really annoying sometimes, but you know that he’s always there to help.  He’s one of your best friend.

And then you just, fall asleep. It’s weird that thinking about Tucker can make you fall asleep. Maybe it’s because, a while ago, he used to come in your room and bring you some coffee when you couldn’t sleep. It’s not like you asked him to, he actually wanted to make you feel better. And, sometimes he spent the night in your room, mostly because you ended up talking about various thing and then falling asleep later. He made you feel better, and even though he acted like he hated you, you knew that deep inside he cared. He just never wanted to admit it.

That night you, you had a dream with him. You dreamt with him bringing you coffee, and telling you some old stories from when he was still in Blood Gulch. He talked a lot about how Church was a terrible leader, and about a tank called Sheila that Caboose really liked. You didn’t really understand that, but you just shrugged it off. Then, Tucker told you about Tex again. How she was scary at first, but then he understood that he shouldn’t really hit on her unless he wanted to get punched. It took a while for him to realize that though. She and Church had some kind of relationship that he didn’t really understand. He thought they were dating or something. He didn’t really pay attention to that. Though, one thing he did pay attention to, was Grif’s sister, Kaikana. He really liked her, she was amazing and a true beauty for him. And after knowing about everyone that Tucker has showed interest to, that made you wonder if Tucker has ever  _not_  showed interest in someone. You ask him that.

"Well, I never really felt attracted to Caboose." He laughs, smiling at you.

You laugh with him, and suddenly you feel good; you feel  _happy_. It’s been a while since you felt that happy, and it was just because someone actually cared about you enough so they would spend their night making you company. But Tucker did, and you couldn’t believe that. Tucker, the person that usually complained to you and hated you and said he couldn’t stand you, wasted his night just to make you feel better. And yeah, let’s say that when you thought that, it made you feel way more happy.

Then, you had a short dream with Carolina. It wasn’t anything intense, but it wasn’t something you’d forget easily. You were sitting on the floor and she had her head on your lap. You were slowly caressing her hair, and her eyes were closed. None of you were saying anything, it was just silence. You didn’t really bother with that; you were used to it. You understand that sometimes she just needs someone to stay with her and make her relax. Nothing else. Sometimes you talk a bit, but just some quick questions, nothing important. But you liked doing that. You liked getting to spend some time with her and just stay in silence, taking a break and breathing properly. Most of the time, you both ended up falling asleep, and one of the guys had to come and wake you up. At least you didn’t have to try to explain it to them, mostly because they just didn’t really care. Less problems to deal with, you think.

Suddenly, you feel something move on your lap, and you see Carolina got up and it’s currently sitting next to you. Her head is on your shoulder, and she takes a deep breath.

"I need a fucking break." She says, sounding tired. "This is too much."

Her eyes are closed again, and her breathing is slow and heavy. Your hands are on your knees and you feel something touching one of them. She is trying to hold your hand. You mindlessly brush your thumb against the back of her hand. You’re probably both tired and don’t know exactly what you’re doing. You end up resting your head on hers, and that’s how you stay. Hand in hand, and sitting right next to each other. Shortly after she falls asleep, you do too. You can’t hear, see or feel anything, except her hand. You can still feel her hand. And that makes you smile.

When you wake up, the first thing you see is red. A dark red, covering your eyes. Once you try to rub your eyes, you realize it’s Carolina’s hair. She’s facing you, and you realize she’s still sleeping. You look at her face and you can’t help but smile. You never noticed that before, but she has little freckles on her cheeks and you think they’re beautiful. In fact, everything about her is beautiful. Her smile, her laugh, her eyes, literally everything, even the way she playfully punches you. She’s one of your best friends, and you’ve always been by her side. But sometimes, when you start thinking about her, you end up thinking about how beautiful she is, how much you want to stay with her and you just you just love her so much. She means the world to you, and you never want to let her go. You know that she doesn’t want to get involved with anyone right now, so you don’t push it. But you’re always going to be there for her, as her friend. And maybe, when all of this is over, you can both give it a try.

But for now, you just wrap your arms around her waist and pull her closer. You run your fingers through her hair, and then you kiss her forehead softly. You quickly look at the clock, and you see it’s 5:57AM. You close your eyes and relax. You need to wake up in a few minutes, but you decide to stay in bed. You just need to spend a little more time with Carolina. It’s not everyday that you have the chance to hold her like that, so you try to enjoy it the best way you can. Everything else can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> oKAY SO LIKE A WEEKEND LATER... im so glad i finished this like oh my god yes thank u jesus. but i am so happy with how this turned out, im so proud of myself. i hope you enjoyed it :D


End file.
